Reflections: Week 5 & 6

First off, I think it's crazy that the sixth week is over. Time is going by so fast!!

The Past 2 Weeks...

Blogging has become a apart of my daily routine now. I don't know what to think of that (haha). I often find myself reading blogs if I'm bored, maybe it's the new facebook. Anyways, the past 2 weeks we got the chance to watch 2 different movies. The first one was called "Diet for a New America." This was a documentary done by John Robbins that looked at different practices of the meat and dairy industries. The second movie that we are still currently watching is called "Future for Food" and this one focues on farm lands and how things are changing with big businesses, who are pretty much buying out farms and making "owning" all types of seeds. They are genetically monifying seeds, creating lack of biodiversity- This can cause some problems.


My Thoughts

Although, I didn't get to watch the end of "Diet for a New America", I got the just of it from reading summary blogs. I really enjoyed it, but then again, when i watch documentaries like that- I always like to know what the other side of the story is.H e made some good and informative points, but at times I felt that all famrs were made out to be bad places for the environment, when I know thats not true. I still kept an open mind and was shocked to hear about how some farms actually do run, to me it seems inhumane.
"Food for the Future" is a great movie thus far. It really makes me think about how much goes on "behind the scenes". We live our lives everyday without knowing what others are coming up with. I seems all these decisions get made by a select few "the man" and we find out about it, when something goes wrong. What was most shocking for me to learn wasthe fact that there are people who are working for "both sides". I can't wait to seehow the movie ends.

Share & Voice: The Green Book

So, this summer when I was home, I was at the mall with my mom waiting to see a movie. We decided to go look around Chapters (canadian version of Barnes and Noble) and I bought a really interesting book. Its called The Green Book - "The everyday guide to saving the planted one simple step at a time" by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen.

Basically what the book entails is hundreds of small choices you can make to have a big impact on the health of our planet. Its divided into different sections such as: home, travel, communication/technology, school, entertainment, sports, work, shopping, health/beauty, money/finance, building, and going carbon neutral. It sits beside my bed and I just pick it up here and there and find myself readin little choices I will try to make the next day. They all seem so simple, but at the same time a lot of the facts are shocking. Here are some of the ones that stick out in my head:

Home: Flush your toilet oneless time a day- you'll save about 4.5 gallons of water; as much water as the average person in africa uses for awhole day of drinking, cooking, bathing, and cleaning.

School: Only 2.5 percent of students who live within 2 miles of campus bike there. Still, by not taking a bus or car, those six hundred thousand students are saving almostone hundred thousand gallons of gas a day!

Work: Reuse paper clips. Enough paper clips are produced to hand every person in the country at least three.If one out of every four workers reused their paper clips, it would save more than $1 million.

Shopping: Choose pettoys made from recycled materials.If all the pet toys purchasedeach eacy boasted 100% recycled content,the virgin materials saved could make a frisbeenearly 2.5 miles in diameter!

"If everyone in theUnited States refusedtheir receipts, it would save a roll of paper more than two billion feet long, or enough to circle the equator fifteen times!!!"

If anyone wouldlike to borrow this book, let me know!

Eye Opener: Review of reading 23- Bioreactors and EPA Propsal to Deregulate Landfills

This article is based around the idea that the compost industry has yet to show how it can complete as an alternative to landfills because current landfill regulations put composting at a severe disadvantage by allowing landfills to defer costs of inevitable environmental contamination to future generations while composting had to address evironmental concerns in the short term before compost can be used beneficially. It talks about helping the problem by having and EPA deregulate most national standards, but in the long run it would just perpetuate landfilling. The article is then divided into 3 sections: Failure of "Dry Tombs", "Bioreactors" a Risky Techno-fix, and Deregulating Landfills.

Failure of "Dry Tombs"

This section talk about how back in 1987 composting attempted to complete with landfilling. Things didn't work out due to a political decision which was based around money. EPA could have could required keeping biodegradable materials out of landfills and promote source seperation of materials- leading to reduced multiple problems. But, the reason is became flawed went into effect because the practice of deferring liability for these discharges in the future made it appear that landfilling was less expensive then it really is.

"Bioreactors" a Risky Techno-Fix

Finally, during the 1990's the EPA couldn't ignore the facts about landfilling and composting. So, instead of recognizing the futility of trying to manage organics mixed with toxics in huge mountains of garbage, EPA promotes an extremely risky technological fix dubbed "bioreactors". A technique of deliberately flooding the landfill with massive additions of liquids in an attempt to accelerate rather than halt, decomposition. The was "cheap" and only partially resolved the longterm problems that wil create a whole new set of short term problems.

Deregulating Landfills

EPA is still investing in the risky techno-fix of bioreactor landfills. They are also proposing a rule that would allow each state the sole discretion of issuing exemptions from most of regulations for landfill operators without oversight. This is apparently a rule to encourage innovation. According to the autor, this is rule a disguise to deregulate most of the minimum national standard for landfill permitting and open the flood gates to the most ill-considerest bioreactor designs built on the cheap to ensure that composting will not be able to compete in the 21st century.

My Thoughts

I really liked this article, but at the same time found it to be very opioniated on the autors behalf. He basically bashed the EPA the entire time about landfilling vs. composting. I agree with him when he says we should work harder in the direction of composting and not just use "cheaper" methods in get rid of our waste. It's funny to me and also saddening that most issues are based around money. That's the world we live in, so we are going to have to find ways in which we can help. We have to work together and strive for the same goals. If thats not going to happen, then helping the planet is going to be a hard task.

Different View Points on The Topic

The EPA is doesn't exactly have a good reputaion within this article, but after reading through their website, they do contribute to the environment in many other ways. It's easy to pick apart a large corporation and find flaws here and there. At the same time, I don't think some things should be taken more lightly than others.
http://www.epa.gov/ -EPA
http://www.fairfieldcompost.co.uk/what_we_do/environmental/environmental3.html- Importance of Composting
http://www.jgpress.com/archives/_free/000146.html - Interesting article on Lanfill Gases

Questions to Pose..

-Do landfills have any benefits to the environment?
-Should the EPA be so concerned with the economical decision rather than the "healthier" decision?

Eye Opener:CSPI

The cspi website had lots of great information and statistics. I decided I was going to focus on the "Tour the food Supply" section and see what it had to say. Right away, I liked the visual and the fact that it allows you to click on various items such as: slaughter houses, feed lots, feed grains, pesticides, irrigation, fertatize factory, farm factory, animal feed, manure lagoon, super market, restuarant, and hospital. Eachof these things had unbelievable facts that I had no idea about. Some points that really made my stomach churn was how many animals were in fact slaughtered a year. Half an animal forevery man, woman, and child is a little shocking, and 30 birds for every american- unbelievable. After looking at the slaughter house stats, Iwas interesting to see what the hospital was doing on there. It should statistics that shocked me as well. The overall cost of diet related illness is about 90 billion annually. Seriously? That much money could turn an enitre third world country around. It's easy to look around and think I'm living a healthy lifestyle and what we have here in north america is great, but I think it is taken for granted and abused at times. It's scary ti actually know what goes on behind the scenes before your meal hits your plate.

Review of Reading 15: Feeding the World

This reading was very interesting to me, just like all the other ones we have been reading in this course. The article is Written by Luther Tweeten and Carl Zulaf in 2002 and discusses issues based around the global food crisis and potential ways it can be avioded. The authors focused on five different sections in their writings: Society's Four Transitional Stages, Evidence for Negative Population Growth, Future Food Supply/ Demand Balance, Protecting the Environment, and The Challenges Ahead.

Society's Four Transitional Stages

Economists refer to the four transitions or stages of societies based on demographics, economics, agriculture productivity, and technologial advancements. The first stage is a tradtional society- low population, low economic and population growth. The second stage is a developing stage- a society's technologial advancements result in sustainable production and plant and animal domestication. Increases in agriculture productivity and production bring economic surpluses that allow growth in capital and per capita income; the third stage, the Developed society is born. The fouth stage is the mature society that sees notable technologial chenge evolve beyond agriculture making deth rates futher. It seems that when one thing gets better, it can harm something else, a cycle we must take into consideration.

Evidence for Negative Population Growth

This section was packed with statistics regarding population projection around the world. It seemed as though the only major exception to the downtrend in North America. The United Nations' medium population projection of 2.1 children after 2040 is widely used as a demographic forecast, but it unrealistically assumes that this rate will be the same in both developed and developing countries. However, many researches do not support the UN assertion the fertility would increase to replacement level in developed countries.

Future Food Supply/ Demand Balance

This section discusses how food porduction is increasing and growth in world food production outpaced growth in population. As a result, average per captia food production increased by .5% annually while real food prices declined by 1.8% annually. It's scary to think that someday our demand might pass our supply. In a devloped country like America, it seems as though we have a good supply, almost more than mwe need, while other countries don't have enough. We can't take things like this for granted or the saying "you don't know what you got till it's gone" may hit hard.

Protecting the Environment

This section discusses how natural-resource depletion and environmental degradation could confound the foregoing food supply and demand projections. It offers information on how we can go about helping save the earth. There have been several studies done the interaction between population and income will ultimately save the enviornment while leaving sufficient land for food productions. I found reading about this study very interesting and how money is such a huge factor in EVERYTHING we do, even if if means saying the earth.

The Challenges Ahead

This is section goes over what was discussed in the previous sections. It discusses internation migration and how migration will lead to greater cultural diversity within nations and could cause narrowing of culutre gaps. The potentail for cultural and ethnic strife will be real, however, and could negatively affect food production and trade. Agriculture may someday not need laborers, will they someday be replaced by machines and computers?

My Thoughts

Overall, I found this reading really interesting, but sometimes confusing. Its crazy how everything affects something. Economy affects birth-rates, birth-rate affect populations, populations affects food demand. I think it is important for every country to take on one challenge at a time. It's good to help eachother, but when there are problems right in front of you, they should be addressed first.

Reflections: Week 3&4

Summary

Over that past 2 week we have discussed a reading from the test from class. It was based on media and how it portrays the enviornment. We learned a little more about blogging (analyitics) and discussed the importance of reader. The other 3 days in class we watched a movie by Al Gore titled "An Inconvenient Truth". It was based on global warming and the changes that are occuring during the present time, and also what we could expect to see in the future.

My Thoughts

I'm going to talk a lot about the movie. I found it really interesting to watch this movie and listen to all the facts that Al Gore had. It seems a little frightening to know what we are doing to the environment and the harmful effects that seem mindless to some. On the other hand, in the backofmy head I was thinking, I wonder what the other side to the story is. One thing I noticed when I was looking at some of his graphs was that they are pretty consistent in movement ( up and down). I'm not saying that I disagree with anything he says because he has lots to back it up. But, I find it ironic how we just read an article on how media is so influencial and can't always be trusted. I know this was a documentary and wasn't produced for economic purposes, but to educate people. Overall I don't know whereI stand,I'm not against what he is trying to do, in fact, I think its great to try and spread awarenessabout global warming, but at the same timeI find documentaries to be bias at times.

Share & Voice: A Taste of the East Coast!!

Hello Everyone!!

So every summer I get to go home to New Brunswick, Canada. It's located on the east coast and touches the Atlantic Ocean. Having the water here in Duluth makes it feel alittle like home. Anyways, when I do go home, I love to go camping and biking with my freinds. We took some pretty neat and interesting pictures while we were out. Waking up to see the sunset coming over the horizon is something that honestly took my breathe away. I'm not a morning person at all, but waking up to this was well worth it. Hope you enjoy these pictures, maybe it will influence you to come visit eastern Canada someday :)

We actually endedup spending the night on this random beach with just our sleeping bags and a fire... Amazing...

Eye Opener: Ecologial Footprint

Summary of Quiz/Project

With this eye opener project, we had to take some quizzes online at the Earthday website. These quizzes helped us determine what our own Ecologial Footprint was.It was a little cartoonthat gave us a visual of what impact we had on the earth with. It asked very simple questions about how we livedour life day to day. Some of the questions asked, seemed like they wouldn't really matter but in this case everything adds up.

Impact of my Behaviors on the Environment

According to the quiz, my ecologial footprint wasn't very good. It said that if everyone lived like me, we would have to have 4.4 earths to provide enough resources. Also, it said that inorder to support my lifestyle, it's takes 19.4 global acres of the earths productive area.

My Reaction/Behavioral Changes

I found these numberts to be very high and alarming. I have been under the influence that I lived a fairly healthy lifestyle, not only for myself but the environment as well. I guess was wrong. I feel like whenever I see numbers like this, it's because all the little things have added up. When it comes down to it, the little things are what makes the big difference. I think one thing that made my scores pretty high was what I was eating. A lot of the food I have isn't locally grown. I feel that making the extra effort in the grocery store can help.